Years ago I was listening to a well-respected editor speak at an Association of Writers & Writing Programs panel about the type of pieces he’s drawn to and turned off by in his submission pile. He expressed his dislike for work that sounds like it was written in response to a writing prompt. Being the good student that I am,…
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I update my gift-giving list year-round and keep it on my phone so that when I get an idea for a special person, I can buy the thing or save a note. I’ve gathered some ideas for you if you’ve got a writer on your list. But who are we kidding? This is a treat yo self list if there…
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My creative writing students and I get along well. We don’t see eye-to-eye on every story and poem we read, but that’s good and normal. But there is a topic that always seems to elicit an argument with a student or two—not a knock-down-drag-out (we save that for our fights over the use of exclamation points) but a topic that…
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American Life in Poetry sent this lovely Barbara Crooker poem to my inbox. It’s full of beautiful imagery, moving metaphors, and effective line breaks. But what caught my attention and what I want to comment on is the title… And Now It’s September, and the garden diminishes: cucumber leaves rumpled and rusty, zucchini felled by borers, tomatoes sparse on the…
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Michael Crichton famously said (although he wasn’t the first to say it), “Books aren’t written, they’re rewritten.” This idea that a piece of writing becomes the best version of itself, maybe even a new version of itself, in the process of revision is as true for blog posts as it is for bestsellers. Rather than finishing your first draft, tinkering…
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